‘‘ I
By reflecting on my own work, my professional ethics and my approach I began to take responsibility for my own practice and my own actions.
was struck this month by Nick Poole’s comments in his January/February introductory column of Information Professional
regarding We Are CILIP, our new five-year strategy and action plan, where he talked about We Are CILIP being a continuum: “the pioneers who came before us, the thousands of members we represent today and the generations of information professionals to come.”
I was reflecting on this a few days ago when catching up with Dr Alan Brine, Chair of the Professional Registration Panel, as our conversation turned to the work of Margaret Watson. Amongst Margaret’s achievements was her ‘how to’ guide to Professional Registration (PR), Building Your Portfolio1
and
some of my own strongest memories of beginning to really engage with CILIP are back in 1991, when I was starting my Chartership journey. It felt like a natural progression, the next thing to do after Library School, supported by a programme of development activities and culminating in a 6,000-word essay-style submission of reflective writing. However, at that time Chartership was really only open to those of us who had followed this ‘traditional’ route. In the 2000s PR opened up and Margaret and others were highly influential in the introduction of a more inclusive professional pathway, including a route that was to become Certification. Alongside this came the new portfolio format, tying the reflection to pieces of evidence of sound professional practice to demonstrate how candidates meet the criteria for admission to CILIP’s Register of Practitioners. Alan reminded me of PTEG (the Personnel Training and Education Group) of which he was Treasurer and confessed that in 2004 he published his own ‘how to’ guide for PR2
. Margaret’s
book came later, with a forward by Alan, and by that time I was both a PR Mentor and an Assessor. It ran to three editions, the last of these in 2015 was
March 2022
updated by Kath Owen,3
who was then
the Chair of the PR and Accreditation Board (the forerunner of the PR Panel).
A mantra for professional practice For me, this book was a ‘bible’ for PR, and, perhaps as a precursor to the impact we all need to demonstrate in our work and services these days, Margaret’s question of ‘So What?’ when reflecting on our own professional development became a mantra for my own professional practice. I am sure I wasn’t alone in this! Talking with Alan about professional development I was struck by his approach, that “it’s really simple to engage with CPD if you do three things: the ‘what’, the ‘so what’ and the ‘now what’”. This is what we all do when we step in to engage with any level of PR, it’s not complicated, but it is a new way of thinking for many of us and that’s the beauty of this reflective process. What this way of thinking did for me was to help me find my own professional voice. By reflecting on my own work, my professional ethics and my approach I began to take responsibility for my own practice and my own actions. I took the opportunity to step outside my own sector and to see our profession through the eyes of others, those working in areas such as the NHS, schools, prisons and corporations, appreciating the difference we all make to all the settings we work in. I also looked critically and constructively at my own organisation and my own work and skills.
Build confidence I think we can all look back to a tipping point in our lives when things changed. For me, this was it – when I started to find the tools to support me to build the confidence that set the trajectory for my career to date.
I mentioned in my last column about the privilege assessors feel in reading the portfolios PR candidates submit and the stories they tell of life across all sectors of our professional practice.
Kate Robinson (
president@cilip.org.uk) is President of CILIP.
www.cilip.org.uk/
I’d really love to see these shared more widely and I’m also very interested in understanding what difference PR may have made to you? If you’d be willing to share your thoughts and experiences with me, do please drop me a line at
president@cilip.org.uk.
Since the end of last year I’ve been working with Nick Poole and Jo Cornish to deliver talks for CILIP groups through a Big Conversation, as a starting point to harness the knowledge of our community. We’re continuing to do this throughout 2022 and I very much hope many more of us will meet in these conversations. Through this approach we’ve been hearing about new initiatives and sharing things we are proud of, while thinking about the future for all of us within the CILIP community, closely linked to our refreshed Professional Knowledge and Skills Base, gathering feedback and ideas. This thinking and your ideas and experiences are now coalescing around We Are CILIP. This really is excellent reflective practice in action! We’re looking at ourselves as CILIP and trying to answer Alan’s three questions: the ‘what’, the ‘so what’ and the ‘now what’. Today we really do stand on the shoulders of others, working together as a community to continue their work and to build the future for our profession. IP
References 1 Watson, M. (2008) Building Your Portfolio: The CILIP Guide. First Edition
2 Brine, A. (2004) Continuing Professional Development: a guide for Information Professionals.
3 Owen, K. and Watson, M. (2015) Building Your Portfolio: The CILIP Guide. Third Edition.
INFORMATION PROFESSIONAL 17
Page 1 |
Page 2 |
Page 3 |
Page 4 |
Page 5 |
Page 6 |
Page 7 |
Page 8 |
Page 9 |
Page 10 |
Page 11 |
Page 12 |
Page 13 |
Page 14 |
Page 15 |
Page 16 |
Page 17 |
Page 18 |
Page 19 |
Page 20 |
Page 21 |
Page 22 |
Page 23 |
Page 24 |
Page 25 |
Page 26 |
Page 27 |
Page 28 |
Page 29 |
Page 30 |
Page 31 |
Page 32 |
Page 33 |
Page 34 |
Page 35 |
Page 36 |
Page 37 |
Page 38 |
Page 39 |
Page 40 |
Page 41 |
Page 42 |
Page 43 |
Page 44 |
Page 45 |
Page 46 |
Page 47 |
Page 48 |
Page 49 |
Page 50 |
Page 51 |
Page 52 |
Page 53 |
Page 54 |
Page 55 |
Page 56 |
Page 57 |
Page 58 |
Page 59 |
Page 60
